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The Numbers Stations Analyzed, Discussed
GMontag wrote to mention a Washington Post article about the always-intriguing 'number' radio broadcasts. The numbers stations, as they are known, are 'hiding in plain sight' spycraft. Random digits broadcast at little-used frequencies are known to be intelligence agencies broadcasting their secrets in encrypted form. The Post article gives a nice run-down on the truth behind the transmissions, and touches a bit on the odd community that has grown fascinated by them. From the article: "On 6840 kHz, you may hear a voice reading groups of letters. That's a station nicknamed 'E10,' thought to be Israel's Mossad intelligence. Chris Smolinski runs SpyNumbers.com and the 'Spooks' e-mail list, where 'number stations' hobbyists log hundreds of shortwave messages transmitted every month. 'It's like a puzzle. They're mystery stations,' explained Smolinski, who has tracked the spy broadcasts for 30 years."
This article made me recall a great All Things Considered story from a few years back about Akin Fernandez's 'Numbers' CD, a CD compilation of some of the most interesting strings of randomly read numbers reaching out across the airwaves.
It was discussed on slash previously in the following article:
Numbers Stations Move From Shortwave To VoIP.
liqbase
If you have a cheap short wave radio, even a "radio shack" one, you can pick up voice audio coded messages to spies that the CIA sends to agents. You will only find them by pure chance, but I have managed to find them and record them but I would say that for every 6 or 8 months of listening to short wave radio I will hear only 1 of these broadcasts. It's usually the same female voice. It's great fun when you find one, you feel like you hit the lottery.
As an avid Shortwave fan, there are less and less clear stations broadcasting to NA, as more and more world service broadcasts move to the Internet. (YEAH I'm talking about you BBC) I wonder how long until the only people who own shortwave radios are spies? Although propaganda stations are well worth the price of the radio. Listen to Cuba's hour loop of things we blame on the US today, and keep a straight face, I dare you.
With these stations becoming so popular, isn't it time to sell ads? After all, spy agencies can always use the extra cash, and the people who listen to these things probably constitute a solid geek demographic.
... why do I feel like I've missed a step there?
Or worse:
1) Create personal numbers station with especially intriguing sequences to draw audience
2) Sell ads on your personal number station
3) Profit!
If you are in the US military and go to the language school in Monterey, a big portion of your "lab" training is learning how to transcribe groups of numbers read in your target language. It's a big part of your "grade" in your coursework.
Now, it's hard to say if the US transmits numbers, but it's pretty clear that there appears to be some intelligence value in teaching the electronic warfare people how to listen to streams of numbers in other languages.
It's probably a great way to send one-way messages to the field. A simple AM radio can be modified work in different frequencies. With that and a normal-looking one-time-pad code book can go a long way to providing secure communication that is inconspicuous.
So, the CIA might not do it, but other countries and services probably do.
For those of you who like this sort of thing, check out 202-386-6909 and http://code-cracker.cerbumi.org. This is a test project that I developed for Cerbumi.org, a new and entirely non-commercial (no ads, fees, etc) website designed to help with real-world problem solving. (Think of it as a "Sourceforge.net" for projects like the "Open Prosthetics Project.") The first person to solve the puzzle and post the answer to the code-breaker project can choose where the Cerbumi.org team will make a $100 donation on their behalf.
:)
If this sounds like fun, please consider signing up for the Cerbumi.org site at http://public.cerbumi.org/goons (a "secret back door for a site that normally requires registration) and try to crack the code. Also, please consider checking out the main planning project at http://cerbumi.cerbumi.org and our Flash-based demo at http://cerbumi.org/flash. I'd love to hear your thoughts, too... just reply.
the main reason they still use short wave is the that some of "short wave" isn't so short... the frequencies that they use are the ones that carry long distances so that the origin of broadcast can be very far away from the agent. Also, the devices required to listen to particular frequencies can be made very small so that agents in difficult places can hide the devices. Finally and most importantly, the broadcast voice of the coded messages is distinctly American. Maybe another country could use the voice with an American accent but I don't see why it would be necessary. I think that the agency has faith in the quality of the method used to code the message. Voice messages were used throughout WWII without any enemy getting anywhere near breaking the codes.
Computer data requires equipment to receive and decode, even if it just a laptop. Short wave requires only a receiver that can be made almost arbitrarily small and can therefore be ditched or hidden in an emergency.
Take the old Radio Moscow transmitter in East Berlin, for example. You are quite right that such HF broadcasts would often end with a looping tape containing info on what freq(s) the site would be transmitting next. Well and good.
Eventually, though, the tape ends and the transmitter shuts down. Fine. Now all you're listening to is a whole lot of nothing but white noise, right? STAY ON THE FREQ FOR ANOTHER 5-10 MINUTES. Suddenly another carrier comes up, and a woman's voice starts. On the Radio Moscow freq she would always start with "Achtung, achtung," then proceed to read-off a long string of number groups (NOT freqs!). When done, she would finish with "Ende," and the carrier would immediately drop.
Still sound like a freq change notice to you?
Regards;
I have not experienced this firsthand when I was in Military Signals, but I have certainly been told it can happen - by my instructors, in class and apparently in all seriousness. Its pretty rare but evidently some signals can survive up in the ionosphere for extremely long periods of time. The example they mentioned was having heard message traffic over HF that apparently dated from an exercise shortly after WWII, but received in the late 80's sometime.
I know I have heard a signal I sent, bounce right around the earth and come back to our receiver a few mins later. I also remember picking up a signal on Military frequences in Northern Ontario (I was in the Canadian Military) that originated down in Florida, evidently on a Taxi transmitter, judging by the conversation I had with the guy when I asked him to leave our channel.
Radio is fascinating stuff, its a shame its losing its popularity to the Internet and computers, because its still a very neat and geeky technology.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid